Monday, June 30, 2014

“Sociologists of the caste have invoked religion, cognition, cosmology, heaven and hell to find the secret of the genesis, growth, and survival of the caste and caste system. In the process, they have missed the real secret of the caste and caste system, which lies in political economy.”

[“Recasting Caste: From the Sacred to the Profane” by Hira Singh]

Joan Robinson, the legendary Cambridge economist, was visiting India after a tour of revolutionary China in the 1950s. In India, she met E.M.S. Namboodiripad, a senior leader of the then united CPI. She asked EMS, despite many similarities between the two countries why there was a revolution in China, and why it did not happen in India, what was the problem? “Caste” was the answer given by Namboodiripad. Today, the India political left is divided, so one need not toe the political line of E.M.S. Namboodiripad or his later party CPIM. This, however, is not to deny the existence of caste or caste atrocities in India. Every day one gets the gory news of medieval barbarism inflicted on the Dalits of the country. Therefore, understanding the caste system is a serious task for anyone who is interested in the revolutionary transformation of Indian society. For communists, it is an urgent task, because the annihilation of caste is intrinsically related with the abolition of class rule in India.

Orientalists, indologists and colonial administrators had tried to understand the caste system in India each according to their own ideological prejudices, predominantly from the colonizers’ mindset of “the whiteman’s burden” and the “exotic east”. Risley, the Census Commissioner of British India, was one of the early pioneers to study caste. Later, with the establishment of the Bombay School, eminent sociologist G.S. Ghurye wrote “Caste and Race in India”. The book has achieved iconic status with the 19th reprint done by Popular Prakashan, Bombay in the year 1911. M.N. Srinivas, a well-known scholar on caste, left his teaching job at Oxford in the year 1927 to start the first sociology department at Baroda. . After Independence, caste has been one of the major pre-occupations of Indian sociologists.

There is no unitary theory of castes. There is a whole spectrum of perspectives. From the orientalists to the post-colonial, there is a variety of caste theories. Hocart and Quigley give the kingship theory, while Morton Klass calls his method as eclectic anthropology. Marxists and liberals, Gandhians and Dalit intellectuals have also written on caste. So, Marxism and Ambedkarism are only two red and blue colours in the colourful spectrum of caste theories. Apart from differences on the “book view” and “field view”, overall debate on caste within Indian sociology has been pro or against Louis Dumont. For Marxists, the basic debate is between the method of D.D. Kosambi and Louis Dumont. “Division of Labour” and property regimes have been one of the major ingredients of Kosambi’s method. Ursula Sharma, who also has done her fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, has done a fairly good mapping of the caste debates within sociology and social anthropology in her book “Caste” published early this century. Within the Marxist tradition, there is this whole debate about “infrastructure” and “super structure”. Suvira Jaiswal, Uma Chakraborty, Anupama Rao, Sharmila Rege, Susie Tharu et al., have written on the intersections of caste and gender.

Over the years, in my interactions with different young research scholars in the universities in Delhi, to my surprise I found even a handful of Marxist talking about the inadequacies of Marxism in understanding the functioning of caste system in India. As a Marxist, this was a personal challenge for me to construct a Marxist narrative of the caste system in India. In my search for Marxist discourses on “caste”, Hira Singh’s book “Recasting Caste”, which was published this year, has made me proud of the Marxist tradition in interpreting caste.

“The difference between the West and the rest was essentialized in the dominant discourse during slave trade, colonialism and imperialism constitutive of modern West. Identification of India with caste and reduction of caste to its religious essence is a product of the colonial process of essentialization. Interrogating the [mis]identification of India with caste and the reductionist view of caste as essentially religious or ideal going back to the classical roots of mainstream sociology is a necessary step towards decolonizing sociology of caste. Decolonization here is not being used to draw distinction between Indians and non-Indians or between East and West. Decolonization I talk about is not related to cultural or national identities of scholars or scholarships. Rather, it is related to an alternative perspective. Sociology of caste has followed the classical sociological tradition which, as discussed above, originated in ideological opposition to Marxism in the 18th-century Europe. In extending that framework to the study of the caste system in India, it had two main objectives. One, it used the caste system to critique Marxist interpretation of society and history, the notion of class in particular, at home. It was simultaneously used to argue that India remained stuck at the stage of status opposed to contact, mechanical opposed to organic, lineage opposed to state, despotic opposed to democratic, irrational opposed to rational, static opposed to dynamic and savage opposed to civilized modern West. That was the dominant discourse of modern West in the age of colonialism-imperialism. Dumont extends that, in a reinvigorated form, at a time when colonialism-imperialism was in the decline, but the struggle between Marxism and mainstream sociology in the West (and the East) had acquired new vitality in the background of the ideological divide of the Cold War. Theoretical-methodological framework used by mainstream sociology is a hindrance to produce a theory of caste. To develop a theory of caste, we need an alternative approach that enables us to see the intersection of economic, political and ideological in the origin of the caste system, its reproduction, continuity and change in historical perspective.”

[Pp. 61-62. “Recasting Caste: From the Sacred to the Profane” by Hira Singh]

Dr.
G N Saibaba, who was abducted from Delhi by the Maharashtra police on 9 May
2014 and charged under the UA(P)A, remains languishing in Nagpur Central Jail
to this date, without any substantial reason for being detained.

Saibaba
had applied for bail on robust legal and humanitarian grounds. The latter
grounds included the argument that the jail acknowledgedly did not have the
medical facilities to house a 90% disabled person like himself, and that he was
suffering severely from medical neglect. In spite of this, the Sessions Court
rejected his bail application on the absurd grounds that the jail authorities
did not provide any record of denial of medical facilities.

Since
his arrest, Saibaba has not been produced before the magistrate to ascertain
his medical condition. He remains without adequate medical assistance, and his
condition is deteriorating fast. He has collapsed twice in jail and as yet no
medical facilities have been provided.

In
the light of these circumstances, a 17-person Committee for the Defence and
Release of G N Saibaba has been constituted to expedite his release on bail,
and to ensure that he is treated and tried in accordance with all legal and
constitutional provisions. The following members constitute the Committee.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

A trade union conference was violently attacked by fascist thugs on June 26 in Kiev. The Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine was holding its congress and was due to elect the union leadership, when it was interrupted by a violent attack by “Right Sector” and “Social-National Assembly” neo-nazi thugs, as well as the Maidan self-defence militia.
The police force arrived after most of the damage and violence have been done and have failed to intervene effectively, while several Afghan war veterans attempted to defend the conference on their own.

The attackers, who burned flags, used pepper spray against their opponents, broke glass doors and windows, and set fire to one of the corridors in the building, had declared the leadership elections illegitimate and demanded that the Federation adopt measures of “lustration” against most of its former leaders, especially Party of Regions members.

This is just another move towards suppressing dissent by the regime. Whether the FPU is bureaucratic or not is irrelevant in this case, this is a problem that workers in Ukraine have to deal with themselves, not neo-Nazi thugs.

As in other spheres of society, where secret police, aided by fascist thugs, carries out arrests against dissenters and left-wing activists, here the Kiev regime uses neo-Nazi militants in an attempt to push through politically loyal leadership into trade union organisations – like the so-called Independent Miners’ Trade Union, where the leadership is affiliated to the nationalist “Batkivshchyna” (Fatherland) party and has played a strike-breaking role during the Donbas miners’ industrial action.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Nobody believes in the ceasefire. Except maybe Vladimir Putin, who has asked the Federation Council to reverse its decision on the possibility of using the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine.

Of course, supporters of the Russian authorities will see in the president's actions the next "trick," like they previously announced about his enthusiastic handshake with Poroshenko or statement to the Kiev authorities about the possibility of partial payment for gas. But it seems to me that if the Russian leader believes in the possibility of peace, he is seriously mistaken.

However, the resumption of hostilities speaks for itself. In fact, the terms proposed by Poroshenko do not suit anyone.

The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics are naturally glad to have a truce, but it is too soon to say what the prospects are for long-term peace. Poroshenko’s “peace plan” does not satisfy the republics because no public recognition is given to them, and even their rights under a single federal entity of Ukraine are not promised. Kiev is discussing the terms of surrender, rather than a democratic peace that takes into account the interests of all parties.

The Ukrainian hawks, the so-called “war party,” are not satisfied with Poroshenko’s "peace plan” either. This "party" of [oligarch and Dnepropetrovsk Governor Igor] Kolomoysky, under the guise of the war, is building its own “federation,” a sort of corporate state, to control not only Dnepropetrovsk, but the Odessa region and the city of Kharkov. Kolomoysky, by the way, has already begun to conduct his own foreign policy, meeting with U.S. envoy Victoria Nuland separately from the Kiev leadership in Odessa.

Also in the "war party" are all those who are profiting from this war -- from generals to the same Kolomoysky, who is selling the army and fascists fuel and materials at exorbitant prices. And of course, the "war party" includes all those "heroes" of the anti-terrorist operation, who, instead of prison terms for Nazi propaganda, lawlessness, looting, murder and torture, received weapons and official recognition as various "battalions." The external patron of the "war party" is the U.S. administration, which relies on a strategy of "organized chaos,” which they also used in the Middle East.

And finally, those areas of the South-East not officially covered by the war are not satisfied with peace on Poroshenko’s terms. These areas are under actual occupation by all sorts of nationalist paramilitary forces which are willing to suppress any manifestation of discontent. An appendage of this is the growing repression against the political opposition.

In Odessa and Kharkov alone, dozens of political prisoners have been arrested, and that's not counting the dozens of AntiMaidan activists killed by Nazi militants. In these areas, the Gauleiters appointed from Kiev, and even directly by Kolomoysky have certainly not solved any of the social, political or language problems which pushed the inhabitants of the South-East to rebel. But so far, outside of Donbass, the uprising is unarmed.

So we return to the starting point. The only chance for peace is federalization and broad self-government, at least for the south-eastern regions. Only this can somehow "make peace.” But Poroshenko himself will not be satisfied: in this case he will be forced to actually carry out the initial demands of the AntiMayadan -- that is, the demands of his political and military opponents. And it would mean his defeat.

Poroshenko, perhaps, could be reconciled to defeat. But the Frankenstein monster spawned by the Maidan will never agree to this. The Nazi battalions that suffered humiliating defeat by the rebels of the South-East, returning to Kiev, are already looking for those who "stuck the knife in the army’s back." Angry little Führers will stigmatize as "traitors" those who were not able to "finish" the "separatists" and "saboteurs.” Such voices are already heard.

Thus, the nationalist and militarist hysteria fanned by the Kiev authorities will turn against itself.

Is Poroshenko ready for such a turn? Apparently not.

Therefore, blood will continue to flow, and the conflict is likely to be protracted. War stems from the very socio-political nature of the new Kiev authorities. It lives by war, its “peace” is murderous. If we do not realize this truth, we could be deceived for a long time by "peace plans" and other well-made speeches from Kiev under the sound of bombs exploding and volleys of artillery.

We all understand that a bad peace is better than a good quarrel. But we also need to understand that peace throughout the southeast -- including those areas where the war is "one way" in the form of repression and massacres -- will only be possible after the defeat of the right-wing junta in Kiev.

Hugh MacDiarmid"When London was burning under the Blitz, their ( Scotland's) poet laureate (Hugh) MacDiarmid said: “London is burning, I don’t care.” They said it was England’s war"George Galloway speaking at meeting sponsored by the right wing Spectator Magazine on 26th June 2014.
George Galloway, someone who we agree with on many working class anti racist issues, has decided to smear and savage Hugh MacDiarmid ,Scottish Poet and Communist at a meeting bought and paid for by the right wing magazine the Spectator on the 26th June 2014 to advance the Unionist case of the British establishment..

Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish Communist and one of Scotland's finest poets is dead and cannot answer the slander of his indifference to Fascism and War from beyond the grave - however we at the Aflonyddwch Mawr have exposed the traitor class of the British Establishment up until 1940 and their views on Fascism here :

"Indeed early in 1940/late in 1939 prominent member of the British establishment Lord Lloyd of Dolobrian , later a minister in Churchill's war cabinet , wrote a pamphlet entitled 'The British Case' , which explicitly rejected the notion of a war against Fascism ( a concept which later became a necessary part of mobilising the population for Total War after the fall of France ) and this rather than just reflecting Lord Lloyd's viewpoint , had a preface written by the aforementioned Lord Halifax, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 'The British Case' Lord Lloyd writes:

"Our most ancient and faithful ally , Portugal , enjoys today greater prosperity than ever before in the modern world under the wise but authoritarian government of senhor Salazar. The government of Poland itself was definitely authoritarian . Above all , the Italian genius has developed , in characteristic Fascist institutions, a highly authoritarian regime which , however , threatens neither religious nor economic freedom , or the security of other European nations." (12a)

It was not Communist Hugh MacDiarmid that was indifferent to Fascism in 1940 but the British State and its establishment that George Galloway now defends by slandering and smearing one of Scotland's true anti Fascist sons while at the same time speaking at a meeting paid for by the Spectator Magazine the voice of the Lord Halifax's in the 21st century.

George, the Spectator Magazine is not the friend of the working class and our late beloved Poet Hugh MacDiarmid was - your speech has been hailed by the venal British Press has a new height in your oratorical skills has you insulted and smeared what is good and great in Scotland a poet and a socialist who loved the working class - Hugh MacDiarmid.

PS : George - Wilson Harris, Editor of the Spectator in 1930's was a supporter of appeasement and the Munich Agreement.

MacDiarmid’s four-page pamphlet, `Scotland; and the Question of a Popular Front Against Fascism and War’, argued publicly for an independent Scotland.

Hugh MacDiarmid was the pen-name of the poet Christopher Murray Grieve and the name by which he is generally remembered. A declared Communist continuously from the late 1920s, he was actually a member of the Party `only’ from 1934-38 and 1957-78.

As MacDiarmid, he led a Scottish literary revival, aiming to engender cultural self-confidence amongst Scots as apolitical weapon. He adopted the use of a form of Scottish dialect, ‘Lallans’, which was a borrowing from many different way Scots spoke at different times and in different places but his poetry was thoroughly modernistic in form.

Born on 11th August 1892 in Dumfriesshire, he was influenced towards radicalism by his postman father and towards literature by virtue of the family’s residence in the local, where his mother was the caretaker. After the death of his father in 1911, Christopher Grieve turned to journalism. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1915 to 1920 and then returned to journalism as the editor of the Montrose Review.

Over the next few years he began to write and publish books and poetry, to the extent that he began to become seriously noted. Although he also wrote poetry in English, much of his best work is written in Lallans. `A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle’ (1926) is an epic critique of imposed `Scottish’ culture, with its `twee' pretensions contrasted to the reality of social deprivation. MacDiarmid’s objection was against a subtle yet powerful form of cultural imperialism and inevitably he opted for a political route to express this, becoming attracted to Communism but imposing on it his own very Scottish gloss.

He was a founding member of the Scottish National Party in 1928, but was expelled in 1933 for his committed communism, already expressed openly in the first of his `Hymns to Lenin’, which appeared in 1931 and was greatrly influential upon up-and-coming poets and sometime Communist such as Stephen Spender and others. Yet MacDiarmid found himself also expelled from the Communist Party after four years. Needless to say, MacDiarmid was a cantankerous personality, as well as a gifted one!

MacDiarmid was first noted in MI5 files in 1931, when his name was mentioned by a group of Communist journalists meeting in a social setting at a Fleet Street pub and reported by an informant. Soon after, an MI5 informant reported a speech by MacDiarmid in which he said Scotland "did not end at the Cheviots but that Lancashire was its rightful boundary". Quite how the reportage of juicy items such as this helped the British Empire remains quite elusive!

He formally joined the Communist Party in London in the summer of 1934 but increasingly found himself at odds with the Party’s leadership, since he was drawn to John MacLean's earlier position of an independent Scottish Workers Republic. His poem, 'John MacLean (1879-1923)' had been first published in September 1933. By the time MacDiarmid came to write 'Red Scotland' in April 1935, he was in full agreement with MacLean.

He was taken to task by the supremely honest Peter Kerrigan, a man of enormous integrity but a firm disciplinarian. In the Daily Worker of 25th November 1935, Kerrigan differed with MacDiarmid’s opinion that an imperialist war could lay the basis for a separate Scottish revolution. He also called on MacDiarmid to dissociate from the `social credit’ economic and taxation redistribution theories of Major C H Douglas with which he was enamoured.

In June 1936 the Scottish Party’s Secretariat began a correspondence of more than twenty letters to MacDiarmid over the next three years. But he persistently avoided meeting the leadership of these issues. (His residence in the Shetlands (from 1933 to 1942) hardly assisted in this.) MacDiarmid’s four-page pamphlet, `Scotland; and the Question of a Popular Front Against Fascism and War’, argued publicly for an independent Scotland. The sentences that the Communist Party took most exception to led to his expulsion: “The betrayal of John MacLean's line by the Communist Party of Great Britain has resulted in a loss to Scottish Socialism beyond all reckoning. Even William Gallagher, MP, who was primarily responsible for it, admits this in his autobiography, Revolt on the Clyde.'

MacDiarmid was expelled by the unanimous decision of the Scottish District Committee and informed by letter in November 1936. In March 1937, he appealed against his expulsion and received a conciliatory reply from the party centre in London. MacDiarmid was re-admitted to the party by the Appeals Commission during the Congress in May. In return for re-admission he was asked to submit the manuscript of any book that might touch on Party policy to the District leadership for consideration. But, in June 1938, the first issue of his `The Voice of Scotland’ appeared, MacDiarmid had, by this act, made it clear that nothing that he wrote would be subject to Communist Party discipline.

MacDiarmid continued to produce significant literary work and, almost two decades later, on 20 February 1957 he was informed by Gordon McLennan, then Scottish Secretary, that the Scottish Committee of the Party had decided unanimously to support his re-admission, he accepted and remained a member until his death, even standing in a parliamentary election for the Party.

Nothing about MacDiarmid was ever muted and the background to his becoming a Communist parliamentary candidate was no exception! This position arose out of the election to the Tory Party leadership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, at a time when the Conservative Party held a majority in Parliament and formed the government. He had been a peer and was required to resign from the Lords and stand in a by-election in November 1963 so as to obtain a Commons seat from which to become Prime Minister. The then exceedingly Tory constituency of Kinross and West Perthshire was vacated for him.

Christopher Grieve was outraged not only at the deference and adherence to archaic ways that all this implied. He was driven especially by the supine attitude of the BBC towards Douglas-Home’s `emergence’ as Tory leader and his effective `coronation’ as Prime Minister – in a Scottish seat at that - to seek legal redress.

In a celebrated case (Grieve v Douglas-Home), he challenged the election, seeking it declared void by virtue of a breach of Section 63 of the Representation of the People Act, in that due balance had not been given to all candidates in the by-election. The long-term result was the care that broadcasters make to at least mention the names of all candidates in all elections covered by them.

Home went on to lead the Tory Party in the subsequent general election but his image, not aided by Grieve’s challenge, was a factor in the defeat of the Tories and the forming of a Labour government by Harold Wilson, who milked the evident disenchantment with the old school tie image of the Tories for all it was worth. Home was replaced in the first ever formal election of Tory by Ted Heath. MacDiarmid, as Christopher Grieve, stood in the Kinross seat in that general election as a Communist Party candidate, a hopeless but endearingly brave endeavour.

In all, MacDiarmid published over thirty books and his collected works run to 1,500 pages He live in Biggar from 1951 until his death on September 9th 1978; he was buried in Langholm, where a memorial sculpture now stands.

Miners in the Donbas coalfields of Ukraine have gone on indefinite strike and many thousands of them have marched through Donetsk, demanding that the artillery, fighter jets and attack helicopters sent in by the West-backed fascist junta in Kiev be withdrawn. Protesters raised the slogans “Fascism will not pass” and “Donbas will not forgive”;

The Kiev regime, acting on an austerity programme dictated by the International Monetary Fund, is committed to cutting subsidies to the state-owned mines by $230m, shutting many of them down and selling off the profitable ones at knock-down prices to the private sector, thereby threatening the livelihood of mining communities right across the industrialised east;

Bristol Trades Union Council expresses its solidarity with the striking miners of the Donbas, denounces the West's meddling in the affairs of the Ukraine and wishes the anti-fascist resistance struggle every success".

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

A Struggle for Welsh Independence is a long way away but still even a campaign will be hard going and to half way succeed we need to know what we are up against and ask ourselves how much will Plaid Cymru be to the fore and for instance how many of all those 'Grant Grabbers' at the recent 'Dinefwr Fest' will be on side as many 'Creatives' are aboard the Scots Campaign?

An interesting first step maybe, would be getting some stars and various creatives plus of course 'Intellectuals' to pay for and sign a 'YES TO WELSH INDEPENDENCE' advert in Welsh Daily News papers or maybe Daily Wales web paper could invite such prior to the fourth coming Rally For Welsh Independence, Caerdydd?

Before a really radical serious Struggle for Welsh Independence' can be engaged in as Geoff Ifans 'Hawliau' constantly reminds us, like in Alba, Catalonia and Euskadi, it would be useful and illuminating to see if above and 'Y Crachach Newydd' are up front in the Vanguard or well to the rear still in the trenches of the 'Arts Council of Wales' etc making a quite cultural creativity life preferable to the pain of Patriotism?

Do read your history, not least on the corruption of the Bards to support the Richmond Rubbish 'British Protestant Reformation' at two Caerwys Eisteddfods, take it from there, see my ANGHOFIO blog to really know what we will be up against UNCLE TAFFY TREACHERY AND MORE SUCH TREACHERY, not just Cerys Mathews, the Welsh Traitors are Legion. Just remember Investiture' 69, not much has changed. Gethin.

fb FANTASY OR EMBASSY GLYNDWR REALITY? - THE CHOICE IS YOURS BUT FACE FACT IF YOU WANT WELSH INDEPENDENCE YOU MUST REALLY WORK AT IT AND SO FOR STARTERS THAT MEANS DELIVERING NEXT YEAR AND IN YEARS AFTER WHAT YOU MISERABLY FAILED TO DO THIS YEAR COMMEMORATE AND CELEBRATE THE GREATEST DAY IN OUR NATIONS HISTORY AND WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING 21 MEHEFIN 1404 WILL BE THE ONLY 'INDEPENDENCE DAY' WE WILL EVER HAVE, FULL STOP!

I THINK NATIONALIST ADDICTION TO DEFEAT AS SHOWN IN RALI CILMERI AS THEIR 'SHOW STOPPER' SAYS IT ALL AS DOES THIS RATHER SAD DISPLAY OF WELSH NATIONALISTS WINDING THEMSELVES UP ON THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 'YES' CAMPAIGN, ALL VERY WELL BUT WHEN INSTEAD OF 'DREAMING OF FREEDOM' IN SCOTLAND, CATALONIA AND EUSKADI ARE YOU ACTUALLY GOING TO FIGHT FOR IT IN OUR COUNTRY.

HOPEFULLY, THAT 'RALLY FOR WELSH INDEPENDENCE' DOWN IN 'BAE CAERDYDD' WILL BE MORE THAN FLUFFING UP 'CYBER NAT' FEATHERS BUT THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR ENGLISH RULE IN WALES WHICH YOU CAN BRING A LITTLE CLOSER BY TAKING THE FIGHT UP ON TO THE HILLS OF MAWR THIS AWST TO GIVE THE 'UNHOLY ALLIANCE' OF ENGLISH ARISTOCRATIC 'BEAUFORT BUNCH' AND RWE ECONOMIC NEO COLONIAL CAPITALISM SOME RADICAL CONFRONTATION AFTER WHICH TAKE THE STRUGGLE TO AN INDEPENDENCE RALLY IN RUTHIN AND ON TO THE VYRNWY ESTATE IN MEDI TO OPEN UP A 'SECOND FRONT' AGAINST SEVERN TRENT AND 'UNITED UTILITIES'.

NOW THAT' IS HOW TO KICK OFF AN INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE!

ASAP: Get ready for 12 July Cardiff Bay Independence Rally, loads of Independence Placards and Banners needed plus of course as many 'Baneri Glyndwr' as possible to fly in face of the 'WAGGERS', forget the 'Richmond Rag' as that is too associated now with English Royals visiting our Country, means nothing as far as our National Independence struggle is concerned but Baneri Glyndwr will say it big time. If you do not have one, then order one now from sianifan@sky.com

Good news -- Comrade Masha is free! But the repression against anti-fascists in Ukraine continues. Please read the update below.

Comrades! Thanks to everybody for your concern and solidarity. Comrade Maria Matyushenko is released and safe ...now.

She was detained by state security agents - so-called "anti-terror forces" and "brave fighters against terror" - in the course of a search during which they grabbed all the mobile phones and computers of the family, including ipad of a 13 y.o. sister.

On the same day there were other searches in Dnipropetrovsk. There are mass interrogations and detention of people accused only of their oppositional political views and criticism of the authorities in social-networks.

State security agents act together with ultra-right militants in course of the detentions of dissenters

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

We have just received news that unknown people ransacked the apartment of Maria Matyushenko, a member of Borotba, and took her.

This was reported by one of her comrades on Facebook.

“The apartment of our activist from Dnepropetrovsk Maria Matyushenko was raided. Unknown people (according to preliminary information from the SBU security service) ransacked her home and took her.”

Remember that the Kiev government are conducting a clamp down on anti-government protesters and their democratic rights. The Marxist organisation Borotba (Struggle), suffered a series of illegal raids on its offices in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa and was finally forced to go underground.

The government has started a clampdown on facebook, with the state prosecutor instructed to start criminal charges against anyone making “public calls for the violent change or overthrow of the constitutional order” or even “the distribution of materials inciting to such acts”

We urge left wing, trade union and solidarity activists to contact the Ukrainian embassies and consulates demanding that Maria Matyushenko is immediately released and making the Ukrainian authorities responsible for her well being.

We the undersigned would like to express our concern over the manner in which the government is increasingly resorting to the indiscriminate use of custody. In particular, the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 2008 (UAPA) is being abused indiscriminately to harass, intimidate and dissenting voices. This is part of the escalating effort to impede free speech and even thought, contrary to the Constitution of India as well as International principles of Human Rights. Such actions become pernicious in the context of the wide-ranging powers and impunity that have been available to the police and paramilitary forces under this Act. This is illustrated by the fact that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has reportedly issued instructions that persons and organizations who raise issues of human rights violations in Maoist areas must be targeted and arrested.

The recent abduction of Dr. G. N. Saibaba was particularly shocking. Dr. G N Saibaba, Asst. Professor with the Department of English, Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University, was arrested by the Maharashtra Police on 9 May 2014 for his alleged links with Naxal leaders. He has been an active member of the Delhi University community, a very popular and respected teacher, and an important voice on democratic norms within and outside the university. He has been a vocal and important critic of the Indian state’s policies with regard to its paramilitary action in Central and Eastern tribal areas, commonly known as Operation Green Hunt. Along with other intellectuals, he has drawn attention to the blatant human rights violations of the Adivasi peoples of these regions. In particular, he has pointed out the enormous financial stakes in claiming the region for private industrial and commercial development at several national and international forums. Along with other intellectuals, he has criticized such models of “development” and their usefulness for the local populace in any participatory democracy. His sustained critique has earned him the ire of the powers that be. For some time now, they have been looking for a way to silence this very significant voice.

Dr. Saibaba is wheelchair bound, suffers from 90% disability and post-polio residual paralysis of both lower limbs. He poses no flight risk whatsoever. He is also a heart patient with blood pressure issues. Furthermore, he suffers from chronic and intense back pain as a result of the disability and being wheelchair bound. He has always cooperated fully with the investigation and did not need to be arrested. The National Human Rights Commission has already issued notice to the Maharashtra and Delhi police forces for violation of Dr. Saibaba’s rights in the course of the earlier investigation.

Saibaba is being kept in a highly unsanitary, solitary cell, in darkness and with inadequate facilities. The denial of medication has resulted in constant pain and deterioration of health. Moreover, he is experiencing great difficulty, pain and indignity while using the toilet since it is impossible for him to use the Indian style commode that is provided in his cell. Given his fragile medical condition, we are particularly concerned for Dr. Saibaba’s well-being, and are apprehensive that, given his fragile medical condition, he may collapse physically in police custody.

We also understand from news reports that the Chattisgarh Police has expressed a wish to interrogate him. We suspect that several such requests will come from the police of various states and remote corners that he has not even visited and where legal aid is very difficult to find, only to intensify the torture on him. The present Master Case will be vastly multiplied to tie up the life and resources of the family in litigation. Consequently, the family will become increasingly financially vulnerable.

Your Honour, we are deeply concerned about the methods being adopted now by the police to silence voices of dissent. There are thousands of political prisoners languishing. There is a dire need for a more compassionate criminal justice system that will encourage the participation of the people in proving their innocence. There is also an urgent need to level the playing field, which is at the moment hopelessly prejudiced against the individual. Such an intervention can come only from a Superior Court. We look to you for justice and for the judicial protection of all such critical voices. We further appeal to you to intervene in the increasing criminalisation of voices of dissent and critique.

On the matter of Saibaba in particular, given that he clearly poses no flight risk whatsoever, we ask you to initiate a judicial investigation of the matter and to issue an interim order immediately releasing him from judicial custody and back to his family.

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Donetsk People's Republic has begun forming a division of miners, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic, Alexander Borodai, told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

"Formation of a division of miners, who have decided to defend their homes and families, has begun in Donetsk today.

Five hundred people are already enrolled in the ranks," he said.

The strength of the Miners' Division is expected to reach 10,000, the government head added.
"It is really a patriotic war for us," Borodai noted.

About 10,000 people marched in an anti-war demonstration of coal mining workers in Donetsk on June 18. Deputy minister of coal mining industry of the Donetsk Republic Konstantin Kuznetsov told a meeting that Donbass miners would take up arms if Kiev authorities did not stop the military operation in the region in two days.

"Miners give two days to stop the so-called anti-terrorist operation. If it does not happen, they will take up arms and will go to defend their land, wives and children," he said.

Democracy and Class Struggle says now is the time with the armed working class tomake the Class Struggle the Principal Struggle, and overcome the vacillations of the Donetsk People's Republic leadership, and take on the local Oligarchs and their Kiev masters and bring the Donetsk Industries into public/community ownership.

The internal contradiction in Ukraine between the Oligarchs and the people is the principal contradiction which has been exploited by external forces, the resolution of this contradiction will weaken the Kiev junta and their Oligarch in Chief Poroshenko whose role we have described here

Make Class Struggle the principal struggle and defeat Ukrainian Fascism and its Oligarchs..

In this day ( 21st June ) of the year 1404, Owain Glyndŵr, lord of Glyndyfrdwy Cynllaith Owain and self-proclaimed prince of Wales, held his first Parliament in Machynlleth. His wish was a free country Wales - we fight for his dream to come true!

Owain in your prison, are you waiting for tomorrow
when the bodies of your soldiers will once again be free?
When the morning comes lead me through the land and through the cities,
lead me to battle by your side.

In areas of history- and especially in that of Hanes Glyndŵr, they fear to come to terms with the fact that this medieval land owner Glyndwr was as Zapata, also a Land Owner. As for being of 'royal blood', Spartacus was also of Royal Blood. The fact of the matter is, Glyndŵr led, largely, a peasant army content to support him as his revolt was also in their favour and liberating they to from serfdom and bondage.

Because of the War of Independence such servitude would disappear and also make it possible for the 'Underclass' to during, and after the war, occupy the uplands and other margins of Cymric Territory - and even, in some parts, re-occupy land that had been taken from the native over the Anglo - Norman Centuries of Conquest and Colonisation. This Peasant Army in time would become the 'People of the Pitchfork' of later centuries who would rise and fight against enclosures of their land with the call to action of 'Trech Gwlad Nag Arglwydd. Thus, if of Socialist mind, be reminded that what was good enougth for 19th century Socialists and workers, who had lodges named after Glyndŵr and drank in a Merthyr Pub named the Owain Glyndŵr, then it should be good enough for you.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

The miners gave Kiev a two-day ultimatum to stop the war or else they would take up arms “to defend their land, wives and children”

The rally on Donetsk’s central Lenin Square initially attracted about 1,000 people. “But the miners from all major coal pits nearby Donetsk: Gorlovka, Enakievo, Snezhnoe, Topaz and Donetsk itself continued to arrive and finally the number of protesters reached estimated 10,000″ Itar-Tass reported
.
The same report quotes deputy coal industry minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Konstantin Kuznetsov as saying: “Miners have given (the Kiev authorities) two days to stop the so-called antiterrorism operation. Unless that happens, they are taking up arms and are going to defend their land, wives and children.”

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Comrade Sushil Roy, veteran leader of the CPI(Maoist), passed away this morning while in a prison hospital. He was the seniormost leader of the CPI(Maoist), and a leader of the undivided CPI, and later MCC as well, before the formation of the CPI(Maoist). The septuagenarian Comrade Sushil Roy had been purposefully ill-medicated to deteriorate his health, but imperialism today is on the backfoot wherever his political descendants are advancing the people's war.

I met Comrade Sushil Roy in the AIMS hospital a couple of months ago. He was in a terrible condition but his mental powers were so strong that he made an amazing recovery for some time.

He battled death like a soldier.

Sadly his health had another reversal from the 1st week of May.

Without doubt he was one of the greatest leaders ever in the Indian Communist Movement who illuminated the flame of Naxalbari and Maoism .

With the tenacity of a rock he led the C.P.I.(Maoist).After meeting him some of my views changed on the erstwhile Maoist Communist Centre of which Com Sushil was the former general secretary.Com Roy played a major role in the unification of the M.C.C.I with the C.P.I.(M.L.) Peoples War Group.

He was a master of revolutionary dialectics which he put into practice and his experience played an invaluable role.He grasped Marxist-Leninist –Maoist politics with the mastery of a professor or a surgeon.

He defended the ideology of the Maoist party, tooth and nail inspite of being sentenced to jail and critical health. He thwarted off all obstacles and all his life combined the qualities of a soldier with an architect .He refuted all those who tried to divided the Maoist party and were critical of the Unity in September 2004.It is ironical that Com Sushil Roy died just 4 months away from the 10thanniversary of the formation of the C.P.I.(Maoist). In his journey he confronted the most turbulent of seas . He possessed the true soul of a revolutionary.

He explained me why the Chinese Communist party refrained from using the term ‘Maoism’.He stated that at that stage in history it would look like imposing leadership of the C.C.P. over the International Communist movement and exhibit arrogance or chauvinism,as Comrade Mao Tse Tung was still alive.

In his view ‘Mao tse Tung Thought’ was only a synonymn of ‘Maoism’, which to him was morally an ism even during Comrade Mao’s lifetime. (during the Cultural Revolution period)

He elaborated the weaknesses of the erstwhile C.P.I.(M.L.) Party Unity group.and the significance of the erstwhile Maoist Communist Centre. He explained that the Krantikari Kisan commitees only partially functioned openly unlike other peasant associations like the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti of the C.P.I.(M.L.) Party Unity group. He stated that the M.C.C. did build open fronts of students,intellectuals(krantikari Budhijivee Sangh) and cultural wings (krantikari Sanskritik Sangh) which had a significant mass base but in the peasant movement mantained secret functioning structure.

In Sushil Roy’s view unlike the M.C.C.the C.P.I.(M.L.) Party Unity group only had floating armed squads or self defense squads and no stable military structure.

The M.C.C.I also formed a strong red army corpse in addition to village level defence corpses. ..Although not forming a complete peasant organization the Krantikari Kisan Committees built revolutionary peasant councils similar to the red army in China.

The secret party structure was mantained with iron discipline.

Certain scholars like Bela Bhatia are critical of M.C.C's secret methods , favouring the open mass movements of I.P.F.and M.K.S.S. but they have never studied the work in the areas of the Revolutionary peasant councils of the M.C.C. in Aurangabad or Gaya.

It brilliantly combined underground mass movements with the meticulousness of a surgeon. Unlike the M.C.C.the C.P.I.(M.L.) Party Unity group only had floating armed squads or self defense squads and no stable military structure.Above all unlike Andhra Pradesh, Bihar had no history of Communist Movement. From 1969 to it's formation till 2004 before merging with the C.P.I.(M.L.) peoples war group it mantained the structure of the party with water tight discipline with no central commitee leader arrested and no military squad liquidated.

Probably it played the greatest role by any organization in the Communist revolutionary movement in Bihar,Jharkand and Bengal.

They may have been dubbed the 'jungle' party but still carried out agrarian revolutionary movement or land distribution more than any other revolutionary group in Bihar with the Krantikari Kisan Commitees.

Comrade Sushil Roy was a backbone to the Maoist party and to the very end displayed the true inner spiritual depth of a revolutionary.Although dead he will reverberate his spirit to light the torch of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Comrade Sushil Roy Lal Salam!

Victory To The People's War!

Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Althought not in agreement with the line of the U.C.C.R.I. (M.L.) he admired Comrade D.V.Rao and Gundahar Murmu.

The following is the full version of the interview Shushil Roy gave to Indian Express, an English language daily recently.

Indian Express (IE): What relations do the CPI(Maoist) have with the Nepal Maoists? Is it still going strong?

Sushil Roy (SR): The CPI (Maoist) seeks, as part of its international responsibilities, to have fraternal relations with Maoists and all progressive forces struggling for the working classes all over the world. Nepal is one of them.